


broken cobblestones

by mauxre



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Heartbreak, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Love Triangles, M/M, Reader-Insert, Summer Love, Summer Romance, but technically they weren't officially together, characters are aged 18, last chapter covers the timeskip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:15:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28829487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mauxre/pseuds/mauxre
Summary: “those days turned into nights, slept next to her but i dreamt of you all summer long.”— the aftermath of a summer gone wrong, as told in three different perspectives: his, hers, and yours.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Reader
Comments: 15
Kudos: 27





	1. just a summer thing / his perspective

**Author's Note:**

> a folklore-inspired trilogy!
> 
> wrote this a few months ago and posted it waaay back on my old acc. made some minor changes so here's a repost :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “would you tell me to go fuck myself or lead me to the garden? in the garden, would you trust me if i told you it was just a summer thing?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen to: **betty** by taylor swift

The pitter-patter of his soft footsteps in the otherwise silent night was a welcomed noise, an efficient distraction for the dangerous territory his thoughts were about to partake.

_Maybe he shouldn’t have told Osamu to go on home without him?_

But whatever. The damage was done and the faint light of the broken lamppost couldn’t even hope to diminish the fact that he was standing in front of your doorstep, hands clenched into fists at his sides as he fought through all the thoughts going through his mind.

He wanted to knock. To go inside and talk to you. To kiss you and hold you like that one time behind the school gym. To make you laugh again like all those times you partnered with him during English class. To grab you by the arms and shake you until you believed him, your parents be damned.

_It was just a one-time summer fling! She meant nothing!_

But would you believe him?

_Well, you sure didn’t have a problem believing your stupid friends when they told you the rumors…_

But that was just the thing. All those rumors about him, you didn’t usually believe them. _I know him,_ you would say, _that’s not the kind of person he is_ , you would insist.

Your faith in him was unfounded, even Atsumu himself could admit to that, but he knew not to ruin a good thing when he saw one so he kept mum. This time, however… This time, all the rumors were true and whatever hopes Atsumu had about you not believing the gossip was immediately destroyed when you arranged to change your homeroom just earlier that day.

He didn’t want to make assumptions but he just _knew_ it was because of him. He knew it was because of what happened with him and _her,_ and it disgusted him to his core that he couldn’t even bring himself to regret it.

How could he, when that very same night, he saw you dancing and laughing with Suna? How could he regret it when the memory of his heart breaking at the sight of you enjoying yourself with another guy was still fresh and clear in his mind? How could he fault himself for seeking and finding comfort in someone else during what was, in his eighteen-year-old mind, the worst night of his life?

He laughed bitterly at the hazy memory of you not even realizing he had left that stupid dance, of you not even noticing that he was walking all alone on the broken cobblestones of the sidewalk, when _she_ pulled up beside him.

She had appeared out of nowhere, in her shiny new car like a figment of his worst intentions, and said the exact words he didn’t even realize he wanted to hear at that moment. And when he pulled himself off of her later that night, all sweaty and panting and _satisfied_ , all he felt was disgust and disbelief. But funnily enough, not regret — not when his phone laid on the nightstand with no new messages from you.

_Huh. Maybe you ran off with Suna…_

A part of him wanted it to be true. To know that he was right in not feeling guilty because after all, you had (maybe) done the same thing. To know that he wasn’t entirely a dick for storming off in a huff and jumping on the first ride that offered him a distraction.

But another part of him, a bigger part, desperately hoped that wasn’t the case. That you weren’t anywhere near Suna anymore and you were safely back home. That you were completely oblivious to the night’s turn of events.

He didn’t have to wish too hard, though, because just like how you knew him, Atsumu knew you, too. And he knew you weren’t that type of person. Granted, you and him weren’t together _per se_ but to a person like you, your shows of playful banter and flirting were probably commitment enough. If the way the two of you danced around your obvious attraction to each other was any indication, he knew you wouldn’t just fool around with anyone else. You weren’t that kind of person. You weren’t like _him_.

He knew you had every right to be mad at him, to want nothing to do with him. But he was only eighteen, barely an adult and his mind still was very much like a kid’s, and he didn’t know anything else except that he missed you.

All that led to this moment — with him fidgeting on your doorstep, and with you on the other side completely oblivious to his internal conflict.

_Would you open the door? Would you slam it back in his face? Would you have him inside and listen to him? Would you drag him to the garden, away from your parent’s listening ears? Would you believe him, kiss him? Would you scoff at him, slap him?_

His mind was going a mile a minute but before he could even nitpick a single thought to focus on, the voices on the other side of the door grew louder and louder. Scampering, Atsumu pathetically hid himself behind a nearby bush. Peeking through the itchy leaves, his eyes bulged out of its sockets at the sight of the front door opening and of the two people who came out.

“Thanks for today, Suna,” you said to the middle blocker. “It means a lot… especially since things have been hard with Atsu— I mean, things have been hard, yeah…”

“No problem,” Suna replied, the reddening in his cheeks betraying the slouched nonchalant front he was trying to put up. “Please tell your mom that dinner was delicious, by the way.”

_Suna… Why was Suna invited for dinner at your house?_

Atsumu tried hard not to draw assumptions. After all, assumptions were the very reason he created this whole mess in the first place.

“I will,” you nodded, smiling softly. “Good night.”

“Good night.” And for the first time since Atsumu had known him, Suna smiled. A real smile — a genuine smile — and his thoughts were getting frantic at the fact that _you_ were on the receiving end of that rare smile.

Not even their bitter loss to Karasuno could compare to the utter defeat the blonde setter felt in that very moment. And as he waited quietly for Suna to turn the corner and disappear from his sight, he kept still behind that wretched bush, his body trying to stay hidden from your narrowed eyes which were curiously looking over to his exact hiding place.

But you couldn’t have possibly noticed him, right? Because you didn’t say anything, didn’t approach him, didn’t confront him. And when you finally went back inside and turned off the porch lights, Atsumu stood up, brushed himself off, and gave your dark windows one last long glance before he took out his phone and turned to walk an all too familiar direction.

“Hello?”

“‘Samu, don’t wait up for me,” Atsumu said, holding his phone in a tight grip.

“What’re you talking about? I thought you were heading home already.”

“I can’t,” his grip on his phone became shakier by the minute. “I need to think.”

And before his twin could respond, he ended the call, pocketing it before his feet led him to an all too familiar house, his eyes catching sight of an all too familiar car in an all too familiar driveway. He shouldn’t be there, but before he could stop himself, his feet dragged him to the front door where he was greeted by an all too familiar face.

Too bad it wasn’t yours.


	2. for the hope of it all / her perspective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “back when we were still changing for the better, wanting was enough. for me, it was enough to live for the hope of it all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen to: **august** by taylor swift

The excited chatter of the crowd did nothing to deter her from her unabashed staring.

Directly across from her line of vision, on the other side of the school grounds, was a sight she so often dreamed about on quiet starry nights. Truly, the sight of Atsumu laughing around with his friends, bragging about how he was going pro, yapping about how he was gonna be the greatest setter in the country, was a sight to behold.

Only those closest to him were given the privilege of seeing him so carefree, so liberated. And it warmed her heart — and broke it at the same time — to know that once upon a time, she too had been given such privilege.

She would never forget the frantic expression on the setter’s face that fateful summer night she offered him a ride. But that was a few months ago. What was even more ingrained in her brain was the memory of that _other_ fateful night when school had started again.

Atsumu had showed up at her house out of the blue, muttering words like “Suna” and “dinner at their house” and “he fucking smiled”, before laying her on the bed and pressing his lips to hers until they were no more than a series of entangled limbs in a fit of passion.

She let out a wistful sigh.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew that there was _something_ between you and the setter. And no matter how many times the two of you had denied it to the whole school, she should’ve known better than to think Atsumu suddenly forgot about you when he took her up on her offer and got inside her car.

She also should’ve known better than to naively think he was suddenly over you when he showed up at her house that second night. But the painstaking reality was far from what she imagined, and she was slapped with a very harsh reminder the next day at school. With the way she saw Atsumu’s clenched fist in the cafeteria that day at the sight of you eating lunch with Suna Rintarou, she _finally_ knew he was far from over you.

_Now,_ she most definitely knew the harsh truth. She now knew that to Atsumu, she was nothing more than a friend to talk to and a bed to lay in.

“Stop staring. My god, you’re too obvious.”

She stared at her friend, smiling wistfully. “Maybe I _should_ be obvious… Then maybe he’d give in and finally be with me.”

“He was with you last night,” her friend scowled at her. “Or so you told me. Unless you were making things up.”

“I wasn’t,” her voice was firm, but her eyes were anything but, as she turned her head back to the object of her affections since the past summer.

He really was with her last night. And the night before that. And the night before that. But he was never _with_ her. Not in the way she hoped. Not in the way she desperately wanted him to be.

“Hey,” her friend nudged her, trying to drag her attention away from the blonde twin who was currently surrounded by hoards of fangirls who were hoping to get a chance to talk to him before he officially finished with high school. “Smile, yeah? Look around you. We just graduated! Forget about him, okay?”

She nodded absentmindedly, ignoring the way her friend sighed at her as if she was a lost cause. Maybe she _was_ , and maybe her friend finally resigned to leaving her be and finding someone else to talk to — someone who wasn’t too busy pathetically chasing after a guy who was available but also very much _taken_.

_Taken_ in the way that while she was looking at him… he, on the other hand, was staring at _you._

You were talking to Suna and Osamu, chatting animatedly while waving your diploma around, and _was it just her or was that longing on Atsumu’s expression?_

That look of longing was one she knew too many times, the first time she saw it adorning Atsumu’s otherwise cocky expression was when she pulled up next to him on the cobbled sidewalk that one fateful summer night.

_Let’s drive,_ she had said, surprised at her own boldness. But such courage hadn’t lasted long, and by the time they were wrapped around each other and twisted in the bedsheets in the quiet hymn of the night, whispers of “are you sure” had wormed their way out of her lips.

_Are you?_ He had mirrored.

She had known it was wrong, known that they shouldn’t have dared to break whatever not-relationship you supposedly had with the setter. But that moment, with his eyes locking on hers in a silent invitation, everything had felt _right_ — Atsumu was hers for the night, and this moment was theirs.

_Never have I ever been before,_ she had nodded.

And later that night, with the faint glow of the moonlight caressing the smooth skin of his back, she had been more than content to trace mindless words on the soft expanse of his skin, desperately ignoring the way he was constantly looking over at his phone on the nightstand, waiting for it to ring, _imploring_ it to light up with any sort of message from _you_.

She had swallowed the heavy lump in her throat as she watched Atsumu running around her room, grabbing bits and pieces of clothing that were thrown all around in the heat of the moment, trying to swallow down the words she desperately wanted to say to him.

_Will he call her when they were all back in school? Will he acknowledge her presence, what they did together? Will he spend the rest of the summer with her? Will he pretend it never happened? Will she just be a dirty summer secret?_

She had desperately tried not to let tears roll down her face when he straightened up in front of her, clothes back on as if nothing had ever been out of place, telling her how _no one could ever know what happened,_ saying how _it couldn’t happen again._

But it _had_ happened again…

It happened yet again one fateful night when school started already, and she had desperately tried to ignore the fact that her second passion-filled night with Atsumu happened the very same day you had asked to switch homerooms.

But who was she to point it out, when almost every night after that, the setter constantly found refuge in her bed, in _her_? Because that was what she was — a sanctuary, a source of comfort — and even if that was all she had ever been to him, she hadn’t found it in herself to refuse.

_I can never give you what you want,_ he had said one night. _We can never be anything more._

She had bitten her lip, trying to hold back the words that would make her out to be a lovesick fool, but her mouth had acted faster than her brain. _I never needed anything more,_ she had whispered.

To anyone else, such a relationship — such _arrangement_ , rather — couldn’t ever be enough, but for her, it was more than. All she ever wanted was Atsumu, and for one brief summer, she had gotten a taste of him. That alone was enough and she was more than happy to live for the hope of it all.

And now, standing underneath a withering cherry blossom tree on graduation day, she was more than happy to watch from a distance as Atsumu finally took his eyes off of you and resigned to goofing around with his friends. She was more than content to watch from a few meters away as you took a brief glance in the setter’s direction, eyes shining with an unreadable expression, before turning back to your friends in a bout of laughter.

Oddly enough, she didn’t feel any sense of defeat or loss. Probably because Atsumu was never hers to begin with, and how could she lose something she never had?

So much for summer love.


	3. linger like a tattoo kiss / your perspective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “but i knew you’d linger like a tattoo kiss, i knew you’d haunt all of my what-ifs. the smell of smoke would hang around this long, ‘cause i knew everything when i was young.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen to: **cardigan** by taylor swift

The sound of your phone ringing couldn’t have eased the shock you felt at catching sight of the curious piece of clothing in your hands.

His old volleyball jacket. _Atsumu’s_ jacket.

Your thoughts were going a mile a minute, the ringing of your phone long forgotten, as a bunch of unwelcome memories flooded your mind, opening up a bunch of drawers you thought you had long since closed and locked. Flashes of drunk dancing under a streetlight, of playing hide-and-seek on rare weekends off, of wandering hands and sloppy kisses at the back of the school gym.

You let out a shaky breath, eyes glistening with years worth of pent up tears, but you refused to let them fall. You refused to let him _still_ have control over you and your emotions after all these years.

To be fair, you always knew that thoughts of him and your brief time together would always come back to haunt you. You knew that flashes of kissing in cars and in bars would always linger in the back of your memories. But you had been doing so well lately, moving on to bigger and brighter ventures, mind empty of old high school heartbreaks. You didn’t expect to let go of that peaceful disposition so easily after seeing one old worn out jacket.

Before you could even comprehend your actions, you brought the jacket up to your nose, faintly registering its scent, and you couldn’t help but berate yourself for thinking it still smelled like him. And before you could stop your body from moving, you unfolded the jacket and wrapped it around yourself, eyes closing as a distant memory invaded your thoughts.

_What can I do?_ You had asked him as you bandaged his finger after a particularly harsh round of setting drills.

_Kiss it better_ , he had joked to you, holding out his newly bandaged finger, only to yelp in surprise when you actually did it.

_Then I’ll take this one in exchange,_ you had grabbed his volleyball jacket, wrapping it around yourself before grabbing his hand and starting the long walk home, cheeks heating up from the playful banter.

The sight of Atsumu pouting and asking you to “kiss it better” used to be a constant occurrence, with him always thinking that a simple kiss would make everything better. But unfortunately for him one dreadful summer, a simple kiss hadn’t been enough to make things right.

You tried to clear the memory of the setter hiding so obviously behind one of the bushes by your front door the night you switched homerooms. And you tried to forget the small little detail of his curious eyes when he saw Suna coming out of your house, thanking your mother for dinner, and wishing you a good night.

You knew you had done nothing wrong, that Suna being at your house for purely friendly reasons was nothing to be ashamed about, that Atsumu was the one who should be ashamed for even being there in the first place. But the image of him crouching down behind that wretched bush, keeping his breathing steady so as not to give away his terrible hiding spot, was something you would never forget.

_What was he doing? Would he come out? Would he try and talk to you? Would he make up some stupid excuse? Would he deny everything? Would he leave? Would he come back?_

But you applauded your younger self for not giving in, for turning on your heel and going back inside your house, for ignoring Atsumu’s presence that night and everything he brought with it. But that was all you could give yourself credit for because right after you had turned your porch lights off, you had immediately propped yourself by your window. You had ignored the heavy beating in your chest at the sight of him standing up, brushing a couple of leaves from his shirt, and looking straight at the stark darkness inside your house.

A part of you had hoped he could see you, that he would swallow whatever pride and embarrassment he had and knock on your door, begging you to hear him out. But another part of you hoped that he wouldn’t, that he’d turn his back and give you the peace you were desperately longing for.

You supposed you shouldn’t have spoken too soon because just as those thoughts raced through your mind that night, he seemed to have made up his. Turning, he left your doorstep, walking back to the direction he probably came from, and you tried to ignore the sinking realization that _his house was supposed to be in the other direction._

You weren’t stupid. You knew he had gone to _her_ that night, and the next day as you had tried to ignore the loud shattering of your heart as the wild gossip around the school basically confirmed your suspicions, you had tried telling yourself “good riddance”.

Good riddance because his foolish actions happened before the two of you became anything serious, Good riddance because this whole disaster happened before your not-relationship became something more official.

And now, a good few years later, you tried telling yourself those two words again, replaying them in your head like a mantra.

_Good riddance. Good riddance. Good riddance._

But even as those two words tried to plant themselves in your mind, you could do nothing but look on as another pair of words uprooted them and cemented themselves as replacement.

_What if? What if? What if?_

What if you had confronted Atsumu when he stood on your doorstep that night? What if you had talked to him instead of instantly switching homerooms in a fit of childishness? What if both of you had worked it out?

Your years-old internal conflict was interrupted by the shrill sound of your phone ringing again, and having regained enough awareness this time around, you welcomed the noise, immediately grabbing the device and propping it on your ear, muttering a hurried “hello” before you could even sneak a peek at the caller ID.

“Hey. You okay?”

It took you a hot minute to register Suna’s voice from the other end of the line.

“Rintarou?”

“Who else would it be?” He chuckled. “You okay? I called you earlier but you didn’t pick up…”

Instantly, a wave of guilt washed over you at your earlier musings. What business did you have, anyway, moping about Atsumu, when Suna had proven time and again that he wouldn’t dare hurt you the same way? What business did you still have thinking about an old flame, when you were in a much happier place already?

An old flame — that was exactly what Atsumu was and that was all he would ever be. And though the smell of an old flame’s smoke would no doubt hang around for long, the faint burnt scent was better off ignored, and what more motivation did you need than the voice on the other end of the line?

“I’m sorry,” you forced out a smile, forgetting the fact that Suna couldn’t see you from his end. “I was just cleaning.”

“Don’t wear yourself out, okay? You still have to come to my game tomorrow.”

“Of course, of course,” you beamed, heart bursting with pride and excitement for the latest development in Suna’s career. “What should I wear?”

This was how it was supposed to be — with you focusing on a dark haired middle blocker who had stuck with you for ages, instead of a blonde setter who you had long since forgotten. You had no more room in your life for the boy who broke your heart once upon an insignificant summer, and you were more than ready to channel all your energy to the boy who mended it instead.

And as you droned on about wanting to wear an EJP Raijin jersey for the match, effectively closing Atsumu’s chapter in your life once and for all, Suna was fidgeting uncontrollably on the other end of the line.

After all, how was he going to tell you that his match tomorrow was gonna be against the MSBY Black Jackals?


End file.
